Tracing Shadows on the Wall
by drumblonde
Summary: Blaine is a patient at the Dalton Institution. He suffers from vivid dreams that he drags into reality, and he thinks that Dalton is a school. Things start to change for him once Kurt starts popping up in his dreams.


A/N: I got sidetracked by this idea last week, so I took the time to write it out before it left my mind and I kind of just went with it. So here is the product of my frenzied, stressed mind from the last week and a half. Enjoy! :)

P.S. Hopefully this will make sense. I had to cut some stuff out that didn't fit in with the storyline so it would be less confusing (if it is confusing anyways).

I don't own Glee, and let me know what you think! :D

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><p>In Blaine's dreams, it was as if he saw everything through some sort of magic, miraculous lens. The colors were vibrant, the details sharp instead of fuzzy, and Blaine seemed to remember every moment of his dreams when he awoke in the morning.<p>

He often spoke of his dreams to his caretakers at the Dalton Institution, but they only humored him by nodding in agreement and only half listening to his wild stories about "what happened" that day. They loved the boy, but had to convince themselves not to give in to his version of reality and play along. It was imperative that he progress so they could learn more about him and possibly set him free of this place.

Blaine didn't mind much, since he was trapped in his own fantasies. He was convinced that Dalton was actually a school, and he was a student there, and his tiny room was a dorm that he lived in by himself since he was the prefect. Nobody told him any different since the first time someone tried to and he broke down screaming and later went silent. He spoke to absolutely nobody for two weeks, and the entire staff was concerned that he had gotten worse. Some even hoped that he had had a breakthrough, but when he finally spoke again, it was to tell them that he had an idea for a song on the setlist for the next performance.

Another part of Blaine's fantasies was that he was in a singing group called the Warblers. People always asked him why he sang without background music, but his adamant answer was that since it was an a cappella group the music came from within so they didn't need any music. He made his own.

At least he was a wonderful singer. Despite his deluded reality, his caretakers saw no harm in allowing him to sing since it always cheered him up and he brightened the sometimes gloomy halls of the institution. Even on rainy days, Blaine liked to sing.

He usually sang the songs that he heard through the tinny sounds on the old radio he kept in his room. That was another concession that they allowed him to have since he wasn't the violent type and they were convinced he wasn't going to harm himself either.

He was only just a boy lost in his own world.

-O-

Wes Montgomery liked to think that he did a lot of good for the institution. And he had done a lot; he was just dissatisfied with the pace of progressions and breakthroughs made. He understood that some days were good and some days were bad. All he wanted to do was help people, and his job gave him a sort of security that he could indeed be the change in someone's life.

He threw himself into his work, trying to encourage his patients to find whatever shred of humanity within themselves so they could come into realization about things and potentially be relieved of the institution. Wes was usually successful with his patients, which is why he was so confident when he took Blaine Anderson in as a young child.

At nearly 18, this boy was still an enigma that Wes was nowhere closer to cracking than he was the day he was introduced to the dark haired child. Like the other patients, Blaine had his good days and he had his bad days.

The problem was that he wouldn't talk about anything.

He was an orphan, but the event that caused his parents to die was the farthest from being anything tragic. It had been a car accident and Blaine wasn't even in the car. It wasn't like they were murdered for their money or another kind of fatal accident. Blaine didn't even notice that they weren't alive since he was so used to nannies before they died. They were business people who had to tend to their affairs, which left little time to spend with their young son.

The day he arrived at Dalton was a sunny spring day—his birthday, in fact—and he sat in the car on the way over with a stony expression on his face. He was five that day, and he didn't understand why he wasn't having a party with balloons and cake and ice cream like he did the year before, even if his parents weren't there. His nanny had given up on trying to get a word out of him since he went mute shortly before his parents died. They had expressed interest in finding out why Blaine had gone mute all of a sudden and were even thinking of sending him over to Dalton to get some tests done anyways, but the accident happened too soon for them to see it through.

He didn't talk for another two months after he got there, and when he did, it was to comment on how boring he thought the class was and how much he disliked his classmates. That comment confirmed that no, this boy would not be leaving anytime soon if he was as confused as he was. They needed to get him sorted out if they wanted to help him clear his mind.

Only, he didn't get any better.

The older he got, the more he seeped into the quiet fantasies of his mind. He drew into himself even more despite how open and friendly he was. He still didn't talk to anyone about his life before Dalton; nobody knows if he even _remembers _it, actually. They asked about it regularly, but whenever they did, a blank look would sketch across his face and his eyes would glaze over, and they dropped it until the next time they thought they could worm an answer out of his.

None of his former nannies ever talked about his life pre-Dalton either. It was as if someone had placed some sort of taboo over the subject, so when his caretakers tried to contact them, they would politely dodge the questions and steer the conversation around something less worrysome and said goodbye far too soon. It was pretty much pointless that the institution even bothered asking them anymore, but Wes said from day one he did not want to give up on Blaine, on anyone, because he believed that they all had that chance to find themselves again.

So Blaine grew up in his fantasy world, trapped in the tower of his mind that was inaccessible to anybody who tried to peer inside. Maybe Blaine didn't understand that there _were_ people out there trying to help him, to save him from himself, but no matter what they told him, he never took it upon himself to let down the rope and allow _somebody_ to climb up and just _be there_ for him.

Instead, he went on in the belief that Dalton was a school and that the other patients were his classmates and that everything could be simplified because he was convinced that he didn't have to grow up.

The difference between Blaine and the others was that he was _smart_. He learned quickly and could read books far beyond his level while the other six year olds were still reading picture books. Blaine read anything he could wrap his little hands on, so his caretakers often brought him books from home for him to read. They would even buy him new books on his birthday, and the look on his face when he would carefully unwrap the paper nearly broke their hearts, because he was always _so grateful_ for the smallest things, like a few new books or an old radio to keep in his room.

Some worried that it might feed his imagination if they continued giving him books, but when they tried to limit how much he read, he withdrew into himself and the wild fantasies seemed to intensify, until Wes ordered that they let him have his books back. After that, things seemed to die down a little bit, and Blaine went on in the way he had been living his life at Dalton.

-O-

On Blaine's seventeenth birthday, Wes decided to try something new. Animal therapy had been tested in the past with some positive results, especially on adolescents like Blaine. Seeing as Blaine was generally pretty tame compared to most of the other patients, he allowed for him to be gifted with a small yellow canary.

When Blaine took the cover off the delicate, golden cage, it was as if his entire world lit up with the warmest rays of sunshine. He ignored the rainy spring day and spent it carrying that cage around with him, singing back and forth to the bird and sneaking him little scraps of food he saved from his lunch. David, one of his caretakers, asked him what he was going to name the bird. Blaine thought for a moment, then looked seriously into the older man's eyes and said "Pavarotti" with absolute conviction. David nodded in approval; he knew Blaine's love of almost all music and didn't expect him to come up with any name that was less fitting for such a beautifully vocal bird.

It was after the gift was given to Blaine that Wes fully allowed himself to hope for the misguided boy, that maybe he could be healed with just a little more patience. Blaine was the happiest anyone had ever seen him.

-O-

The first time Blaine dreamed of him, it was about three months after he was given Pavarotti. He ate his dinner like normal, he had his exercise time with the other "peers" like normal, he read a book before turning out his light like normal, and he covered himself with his thick blanket like normal.

He knew something was different, however, when his dream took him somewhere he had never been.

It was too familiar, but altogether strange and alien to him, and he wasn't sure he liked it at first.

But then he saw the high vaulted ceilings of the hall, the beautiful murals on the wall and the gentle, sweeping curve of the grand staircase in the main entryway and he knew he was safe at Dalton. Safe in the place he had always known when he was awake.

It was funny to him, at first, why he would be dreaming of some place that already exists, but he shrugged it off and followed the swell of the other students making their way down the marble stairs and off to the left to a common room in another wing.

He wondered briefly what was going on when he felt a light tap on his shoulder, and he turned around to face the person that belonged to the gentle hand.

"Hi, you look a little lost," said the person. Blaine just looked at him in awe. He considered nearly everything he came across in life to be beautiful, but whoa, this boy—this boy had another type of worldly beauty to him that Blaine had never been able to imagine, even in his dreams. And that was when he began to believe that maybe it wasn't a dream after all.

"I can help you figure out where you're going, if you want," said the beautiful stranger, and before Blaine knew it, he was being grasped by the hand and led down an empty hallway to a room filled with other boys singing and dancing around.

Everything went by in a blur, and Blaine was reeling from how tangible everything felt. It really was as if he could feel the gentle touch on his shoulder, the soft whoosh of the stranger's sigh next to him, the warm sunbeams on his back as he walked across the sun-dappled hall.

"What's your name?" he asked the stranger after a while.

"Kurt," was the easy answer on the beautiful boy's lips right as Blaine woke up to a bright morning.

"Kurt," said Blaine aloud, tasting the name on his tongue. He said it again, with a smile.

"Kurt." He really liked the short sigh the name made after the briefly harsh sound of the "K".

Kurt.

-O-

Blaine wasn't worried about being repetitive once he went about his day, even though Kurt's name had been slipping from his mouth all day. David shared a look with the other caretakers, but didn't say anything to Blaine about it. He would talk to Wes about it later, he supposed.

For now, it was best to just leave Blaine alone as he chattered away about the mysterious boy named Kurt who Blaine believed was too good to be true.

-O-

Every night after that, Blaine dreamed of Kurt. He always went back to the mock Dalton filled with blazer clad boys and shiny shoes. Kurt always sought him out to talk to him as soon as he started walking down the stairs in a new dream.

In his dreams, Blaine shared a lot about himself with Kurt. He talked about his life at Dalton, the one he knew to be as a school, and in return, Kurt would share tidbits of his own life.

Blaine grew to care for Kurt like no one else before. Sure, he was close to David and Wes and everyone else, but he told himself that was just because they were his teacher, principal, and peers, respectively. Kurt became Blaine's whole world in a short amount of time.

When he wasn't dreaming, all he could talk about was KurtKurtKurt; how incredible Kurt was, how kind and compassionate he was, how much he believed that Kurt understood him. Wes would raise a suspicious eyebrow, but he figured that Kurt was perhaps a childhood friend that Blaine was remembering from before this madness ensued. He clung to that shred of hope, because otherwise, he didn't know what to believe.

At the Dalton in his dreams, Blaine sang to Kurt all the time. He knew Kurt liked it with the way he would blush softly and thank him for singing.

Once, Blaine asked Kurt to return the favor. They were alone in one of the common rooms in a deserted wings, so Kurt saw no harm in indulging Blaine of his request.

He sang with a high, clear voice, and Blaine just sat there, taking it all in when it just _hit _him, like _oh._ Blaine started to breathe heavily, hands clamming up and his cheeks flushed with the realization that came over him that _he is in love with Kurt he is in love with Kurt he is in love with __**Kurt**__._

Kurt must have sensed something was wrong, because when he finished singing, he laid his hand over Blaine's and scooted his chair closer. "Is everything okay?" he asked, worried about the change that came over his friend.

Blaine tensed, sitting up a little straighter.

"Y-yeah, I uh," he stuttered. "Kurt, you have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen," Blaine says finally.

Kurt takes a sharp breath. While he knew they had become good friends, he wasn't expecting that. "My eyes are too light. People don't like them," he said.

Blaine shook his head. "No. It doesn't matter what color they are. I could care less if they were green or brown or the blue that they are right now. In them, see who you are, Kurt."

And before Blaine knew what he was doing, he was leaning in slowly and kissing Kurt softly on the mouth, his hand finding its way up to rest on Kurt's cheek. Kurt tensed for a second, then gave in and kissed Blaine back, parting his lips just slightly to let Blaine's searching tongue dip into his mouth gently. Breathing through his nose, Blaine deepened the kiss, grabbing at Kurt's face desperately so he would never have to let go. Kurt responded hungrily, leaning out of his chair and sliding into Blaine's lap, straddling him and twisting his fingers in his hair. Blaine gripped Kurt closer, kissed him harder, anything to keep him here and in that moment, from fading away too quickly.

But he did.

Blaine awoke with a cold sweat and bruised lips and a growing problem in his pajama pants.

He cried the rest of the night.

-O-

Blaine waited patiently to dream of Kurt again the next night. The problem was—to him, everything had felt _so real_. He was convinced it _had_ to be real, otherwise he didn't know what to think.

He didn't dream of Kurt that night.

Nor any night after that.

-O-

The change in him was slow, less noticeable to the caretakers, but eventually they figured out something was wrong. Blaine sang less, he interacted with others less. He hardly left his room.

Wes was growing more concerned with each passing day, and wondered when Blaine was going to break. He thought his patient had been doing so well. He was positive that the bird was going to work, yet here he was, outside Blaine's door on a stormy night. He was going to ask Blaine to try to come to the social circle for the night, but he heard a muffled noise above the howling of the wind and the pattering of the rain on the window inside.

Blaine was sobbing.

Wes threw open the door and strode over to where Blaine was huddled on his bed under the covers. His form was shaking with gut-wrenching sobs, and he gently lifted up the sheets so he wouldn't startle Blaine.

"Hey buddy," said Wes softly. "Do you want to tell me what is going on?"

Then, Wes noticed how quiet the room was, aside from the wet sounds of Blaine's crying and the rain outside. There was no twittering, no chirping, no cheery warbling. He glanced over at the table against the opposite wall, and choked back a gasp. He moved closer to the empty cage, the gold smudged with Blaine's grimy fingerprints and saw the few yellow feathers sitting at the bottom.

He quickly looked around the room, and went back to Blaine, carefully gripping his shoulder with his hand.

"Blaine," he said firmly. "Can you tell me where Pavarotti is?"

Blaine shook his head as he let out a mix between a gasp and a cry. He was still huddled with his arms tucked close to his chest.

"Blaine," said Wes again. "I need you to tell me where Pavarotti is." Fear ran through his mind as his worst suspicions were confirmed when Blaine finally obliged and pulled his arms out, holding a tiny ball of red-matted feathers. The broken bird lay in his hands, and Wes shut his eyes for a moment to clear his mind.

"Oh, Blaine." Wes bit back the lump in his throat and motioned for him to get up and follow him out of the room. There was going to have to be a lot of damage control to make up for the loss.

-O-

After that, Wes encouraged Blaine to socialize more with his peers at the institution. That worked for the most part, since Blaine was a naturally complacent human being, but he became more like a limp rag doll as time wore on. He dressed in his shabbiest clothes, he didn't bother brushing his hair, he never made his bed anymore, and he often wore a blank expression when otherwise people could usually read him like a book. When people asked him questions, all they got in response was one-worded answers or even just a grunt or sigh to answer.

And no matter what anybody tried, nobody had managed to bring Blaine out of his funk.

-O-

Late at night, Blaine would curl up in his bed and will himself to dream of Kurt. Anything to have that connection again like he did before. He missed their easy friendship and the way Kurt didn't judge him. He felt comfortable where he was at, but he wasn't oblivious to the side-eyed glances he would get during the daytime when he was particularly excited about something. He knew that even though they weren't going to say anything about it because they liked him so much, but with Kurt, it wasn't that way, at least in his mind.

What he missed the most was the love he felt for the boy, and the love he knew Kurt felt in return.

It was hard for him to try to go sleep, forcing himself to keep thinking of KurtKurtKurt, but deep inside he knew that it wasn't going to happen.

Around November, he began to see Kurt again.

It wasn't in his sleep, either. It was in the flesh, right in front of him in his room, talking to him in hushed tones and giving comforting glances when Blaine let slip that something was bothering him.

This time, Blaine didn't speak of Kurt. It had been six months since he had seen him, and he didn't want to share Kurt with anyone else. He was being selfish, but the risk of not being able to keep him to himself was too great to spoil what they had begun to rebuild.

Blaine often asked Kurt why he left, why Blaine couldn't go back to him, everything about what had happened, but every time it was brought up, Kurt would deflect the question and turn the conversation to something else.

Blaine didn't mind, though. Anything to see Kurt's face, hear his voice, feel the heat roll off his body when he stood close to Blaine. The only thing he minded was that Kurt wouldn't let him get too close. If Blaine so much as stepped closer than six inches away, Kurt would dodge out of the way and go sit on the other side of the room. That part hurt Blaine a little bit, since he thought that they had something when they kissed. It seemed too good to be true that he was back, and in the flesh.

Had that happened? Blaine would run his memories of the kiss over and over in his mind, and it _felt_ real to him. But Kurt acted as if it never happened. Blaine thought that it would be different the first time they would see each other again, but instead it seemed to pick up where it left off before the kiss happened.

He didn't know what to think anymore, so he let it go in disappointment unless Kurt brought it up.

Time passed quickly, and most of Blaine's nights were spent staying up late, just talking to Kurt inside his room and reveling in the fact that Kurt returned to _him._ That someone cared enough to listen to him and call him a friend was almost too much for him, but he hid his excitement well enough.

One night, as Wes was making his rounds through the halls of Blaine's wing, he heard Blaine laugh sharply and the low murmur of his voice following that. He raised an eyebrow in suspicion and decided to investigate just exactly what was going on with Blaine.

He was just outside the door when he heard the faint but clear sound of the name "Kurt", and Wes sighed sadly. So Blaine was back to that again, he thought. Gently, he rapped on the door and opened it slowly, so he wouldn't startle Blaine. He found him sitting on the edge of his bed, facing the far wall as if focused on something that wasn't there.

Wes sat down next to Blaine and stared at the wall for a few moments, then spoke. "So, Blaine. Who were you talking to?" Wes kept his voice gentle and non-accusatory so Blaine wouldn't randomly flip out at him—even though Blaine wasn't violent, he was still somewhat unpredictable and Wes always chose his words carefully around him).

Blaine was quiet. "I was just talking to Kurt," he said finally.

Wes nodded. "And where is Kurt?" he prompted.

Blaine turned to face Wes with tears in his eyes as the realization hit him full force. He raised a shaky finger to point where he had focused his attention all night, but now he knew that no matter what, Wes would not be able to see the boy that was slowly fading away from sight.

Wes rested a hand on Blaine's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "I'm going to need you to come with me, Blaine."

-O-

Blaine was led into Wes' office, where he sat down quietly in the chair in front of the desk. Wes waited for a few of Blaine's other caretakers before he began. After David and Thad found a place to stand, Wes began asking a couple of questions.

"Do you know what's going on?" he asked. "Now remember, you don't have to talk right now if you don't want to. You can tell us whenever you're ready. All we want to do is get to the bottom of this and help you, Blaine."

They waited in silence for Blaine to gather his thoughts, even though they knew that he might not even talk. He may not even be ready to talk about things yet, but the look on Wes' face was determined, like he knew that they were so close to finding out what Blaine has been doing his whole life.

"I know my parents are dead," he said first. He sat facing the window and spoke in that direction, talking to whatever lay outside in the world beyond the walls of the institution. "Kurt was a friend of mine. H—his family moved a few months before my parents died. He was my best friend. He understood me, even though we were only four, and I understood him. We connected in a way that other kids didn't. I don't know what it is.

"When they moved, it was so sudden. He didn't give me a warning. They just _left_. He left me behind. It felt like my entire world was tipping upside down and turned inside out. I just—I didn't know what to do. What are you supposed to do when someone that close to you just leaves? I wasn't close to my parents; they didn't have the time for me. I had nanny after nanny, and not one of them attempted to be my friend. Kurt was my only friend."

Blaine turned to face Wes with wide eyes that just broke his heart. "I stopped talking because nobody would listen to me anyways. Kurt was the only one who ever listened to me at home. Without him, I didn't feel the need to talk until I was here for a while. By then, I guess I just forced everything out of my memory and convinced myself that things were different because I couldn't stand the reality that I was living in. My best friend was gone, my parents were dead, and I had nowhere to go."

He rested his face in his hands and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Then, all of a sudden, something just reminded me of Kurt. I think it was Pav, the way I sang with him. Kurt and I used to sing together. Then I started having those dreams about Kurt, and they felt _so real_. I knew that before I was dreaming, but this time with Kurt in the dreams, I ignored that fact and tried to believe that he had come back. After I learned his name again, it was as if the floodgates opened, and I just—lost it when he left again.

"I knew it was true when he 'came back'. I didn't realize anything of what I was doing until Dr. Montgomery came in and asked me about Kurt, when I thought Kurt was there, clear as day." He wiped his eyes which had been filling with tears, and sniffed. "I'm embarrassed and mad at myself that I've been acting like this for all these years I know this isn't a school. I'm in a mental institution." He said the last two words bitterly, ashamed of himself.

Wes placed a hand on Blaine's back. "Blaine, it's okay to feel this way. You just had a major breakthrough. Nothing's going to be normal for a while. You are still going to be confused at things, but you're going to get better." He smiled at Blaine. "I'm proud of you for coming this far. This is huge for you, and I'm so excited to see you leave this place, because I know you can do it and be who you want to be."

Blaine nodded, and they led him out of the office and to a new room. They explained that it was the next step in his process, and they wanted to ensure that he wasn't going to relapse too soon, so he wasn't allowed to go back to his old room yet. He understood, and crawled up on the bed and dreamt of nothing.

-O-

Another six months went by before Blaine was finally okayed to be released from Dalton. Strangely enough, it was on his birthday when he stepped outside the doors for the final time. After long talks with Wes, they had arranged for Blaine to live with someone until the next fall, when he would be going to the state university. Luckily, Blaine was a smart kid, and he was able to take the tests he needed to take to apply to the college he wanted to go to. He wanted his life to be as normal as possible, which is why he took the chance.

There was one final loose end to tie up, and Blaine stood on the front step of the cozy home with trembling hesitation. What if they didn't get along? He was terrified of the possibility of rejection from the family, but raised a shaky hand to ring the doorbell.

The door opened to reveal a man in worn jeans, a flannel shirt and a greasy ball cap. He smiled widely when he saw Blaine standing in front of him and held out his hand. "Come on in, kiddo. I'm sure Kurt's excited to see you after all these years." Burt Hummel closed the door behind Blaine and called up the stairs.

"Kurt! Blaine's here!"

Quick footsteps sounded down the hall and then down the stairs. Blaine could hardly register what was going on when Kurt ran by in a blur. He heard a shout of "Blaine!" and there were warm arms around him. He stood there in shock for a minute before returning the embrace. He couldn't believe that Wes had managed to find the family and convince them to let Blaine live with them for a while. He also couldn't believe that Kurt was finally right there in front of him, so tangible and _real_.

Blaine clutched Kurt tighter and whispered, "There you are. I've been looking for you forever."


End file.
